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India reports that 13 civilians have been killed in cross-border shelling by Pakistani forces since Wednesday, as tensions escalate sharply along the de facto frontier following Indian military strikes.
According to India’s foreign ministry, all the civilian casualties occurred in the border town of Poonch, with 59 others injured — the majority also from the same region. The Indian army further confirmed that one of its soldiers died during “Pakistan Army shelling” in Poonch on Wednesday, bringing the total death toll on the Indian side to 14.
Meanwhile, Pakistan’s military said Thursday that it had shot down a total of 25 Indian drones across the country, including several Israeli-made Harop models, with some falling near sensitive military installations.
The army stated that debris from the drones is being recovered from various locations, and confirmed that one civilian was killed and four Pakistani soldiers injured in the incidents.
Military spokesman Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry described the drone activity as “another act of aggression,” noting that one of the drones had struck a military target near Lahore.
Indian and Pakistani troops exchanged gunfire overnight in Kashmir, New Delhi said Thursday, marking the most intense escalation between the two nuclear-armed rivals in two decades.
The violence comes after India launched a series of missile strikes early Wednesday, which it described as "focused, measured, and non-escalatory" operations that targeted nine “terrorist camps” in Pakistan. These actions came two weeks after New Delhi accused Islamabad of supporting a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir — an allegation Pakistan denies.
In response, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed retaliation. “We will avenge each drop of the blood of these martyrs,” he said in a nationally televised address.
The latest round of violence has led to at least 45 reported deaths on both sides of the border, including children.
Islamabad says Indian strikes and firing along the border have killed 31 Pakistani civilians.
Pakistan's military also claims it shot down five Indian jets in cross-border airspace. While New Delhi has not officially responded to those claims, a senior Indian security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that three Indian fighter jets crashed within Indian territory.
The latest developments unfold amid heightened tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors following India’s strikes on multiple locations in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
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